United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Act on the Sustainable Development Goals!

The Sustainable Development Goals are addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions: hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, income poverty, and exclusion while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are likewise fundamental human rights – the right of each person on earth to survival, health, education, shelter, and security.

Thanks to millions of people taking action and a massive global effort, we have already made real progress. The number of people living in poverty has fallen to less than half of its 1990 level. Over two billion people gained access to better drinking water. The share of slum dwellers living in cities fell, improving the lives of at least 100 million people!

1.4 billion people still live in extreme poverty. Every 4 seconds a child dies from preventable causes and over 900 million, particularly women and young people, suffer from chronic hunger. Meanwhile, our population is set to rise to 9.5 billion by 2050, and the food system is at breaking point.

Climate change threatens to destroy the lives of millions more and undo all the progress we have made so far. Inequality is growing everywhere, and human rights are being undermined in the worlds most fragile and conflict-affected countries while the world economy continues to falter.

Despite all of this, for the first time in history, we do have the resources to end poverty and grow our world sustainably. It will take the work of all of us to make this happen, and we must make our Governments listen and take action on the things that matter most to people everywhere!

The World We Want will gather the priorities of people from every corner of the world and help build a collective vision that will be used directly by the United Nations and World Leaders to plan a new development agenda launching in 2015, one that is based on the aspirations of all citizens!

Share your voice. It all starts with you. What kind of World do you Want?

Since 2005, the World Summit Youth Award has been organized six times – in 2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 – as a follow-up activity of the World Summit on Information Society and its action plan towards the year 2015. (more about WSYA events)

UN SDGs – in numbers:

Goal #1 – End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal #2 – End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal #3 – Ensure healthy lives and improve well-being for all at all ages
Goal #4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and expand lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal #5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal #6 – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal #7 – Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal #8 – Develop a global partnership for development
Goal #9 – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal #10 – Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal #11 – Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal #12 – Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal #13 – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal #14 – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal #15 – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal #16 – Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal #17 – Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Also see: The old millennium development goals